FURTHERMORE

The Stuff Most People Don’t Look For In A Pitch (But Should).

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As marketing management consultants, we’ve observed numerous agency relationships that excel in functional skills but fall short in soft skills, ultimately overshadowing their technical capabilities. It’s crucial to recognize the significant impact of soft skills on agency evaluations.

Soft skills, as defined by Wikipedia, complement hard skills and are essential for effective job performance. They encompass emotional intelligence, intuition, and interpersonal abilities, providing a vital balance to cognitive skills. When selecting an agency, consider the importance of soft skills in fostering successful partnerships.

When defining agency requirements, it’s relatively straightforward to establish a framework of requirements – whether that’s around business expertise, specific capabilities or perhaps technical knowledge. But soft skills aren’t so easy to define and quantify because they require marketers to really understand themselves, and what attributes enhance their own unique business environments.

While soft skills are different for all marketers, here are eight of the most common attributes that we’ve seen make the difference – even when agencies seem to have the functional capabilities but the chemistry doesn’t seem quite right:

Innovation

As the marketing ecosystem has become more complex, innovation has steadily risen in importance for marketers when they’re choosing or evaluating agencies. The caution here is that “innovation” isn’t just another word for “creativity”. Innovation can take any number of forms – but it’s most often quantified around the strategic thought process and how insights are extracted.

Collaboration

Again, the complexity of the marketing ecosystem has spurned a growing requirement for multiple agencies to perform specialized roles. Agencies that can’t demonstrate an ability to collaborate and play nice in the marketing sandbox are typically ruled out faster because marketers want to focus on their own business, not their agencies.

Neutrality

Yup. It’s that complexity issue again. Now more than ever, marketers are looking for objectivity in their marketing mix modeling as ecosystems expand. Agencies that default to broadcast positions, or aren’t open to other agency partners leading a campaign launch, are often less appealing than those that demonstrate real neutrality in their approaches.

Accepting of criticism

We’ve seen marketers test criticism in agency pitch situations because they want to understand how easy agencies are to work with. This absolutely does not mean marketers are looking for agencies to roll over and agree with whatever’s being said – but it does require a balance between confidence in a point of view and taking input and criticism constructively.

Flexibility

Because plans change on a dime all the time, any agency that can demonstrate the flexibility and ability to adapt is appealing because it means the agency isn’t weighed down by rigid or layers of process that can’t flex when marketers have earthquakes. (And they do).

Curiosity

Curiosity is a hallmark of an ability to problem solve, provide insight and provides an important edge over competitive agencies. Any agency that is naturally curious about a marketer’s business is typically more appealing than one that’s just functionally proficient.

Ability to work under pressure

Whether it’s a last minute change of plans, high table stakes or virtually no time, working under pressure is a normal occurrence in marketing. So how the agency team can handle and deliver under pressure is a reassuring attribute that sets agencies apart.

Embrace change

Agencies that demonstrate adaptability and a willingness to embrace change are more likely to be long-term partners for marketers. While short-term fixes may be tempting, investing in a mid- to long-term agency relationship often yields greater rewards.

Soft skills play a crucial role in agency evaluations. We’ve observed that these skills can significantly impact an agency’s success. By understanding your organization’s specific needs and prioritizing the soft skills that align with your business, you can make more informed decisions when selecting an agency partner.

What other factors should you consider in your upcoming agency search?

 

Stephan Argent

Stephan Argent is Founder and Principal at Listenmore Inc offering confidential advisory to marketers looking for truly independent insight and advice they can’t find anywhere else. Read more like this on our blog Marketing Unscrewed / follow me @StephanArgent